“One should use common words to say uncommon things.”

Faith is like love: it does not let itself be forced.

Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.

A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.

Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

Happiness consists of the frequent repetition of pleasure.

Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.

He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he does not attach much importance to his own thoughts.

Ordinary people merely think how they shall spend their time; a man of talent tries to use it.

Truth is most beautiful undraped.

The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

After your death, you will be what you were before your birth.

Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are the tormented souls.

Treat a work of art like a prince; let it speak to you first.

We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.

We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.

The critical question about regret is whether experience led to growth and new learning. Some people seem to keep on making the same mistakes, while others at least make new ones. Regret and remorse can be either paralyzing or inspiring.

If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.

The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.

Life which should be high and full, lived for oneself, but not above all for others those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after.

To be oneself is a rare thing, and a great one.

The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don’t always know what you get at the other end. If you are not careful you could replace a bad government with one much worse!

There is no harm in being sometimes wrong – especially if one is promptly found out.